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Monday’s Iran Mini Report – December 31, 2018

Monday's Iran Mini Report - December 31, 2018

• Protesters In Tehran Call On ‘Inefficient Officials’ To Resign

On Monday December 31, Tehran Azad University students gathered for the 3rd consecutive day in protest to the lack of accountability by officials regarding a university bus accident which killed 10 people.

Videos on social media and reports from Tehran indicate that large crowds have gathered in Tehran’s Enghelab Square with ordinary Iranians joining the student ranks.

The Tehran protesters chanted “Don’t be afraid, we are all together”, and “threats and prison are no longer effective”.

Security forces and riot police also attempted to arrest a number of people with protesters shouting, “leave them alone”.

Mehr news agency quoted Iran’s Police Chief Hossein Ashtari as warning that “demonstrators will need a permit for any gathering.”

• Grandson of Iran Regime’s founder says regime’s survival is not guaranteed

The grandson of the founder of Iran Regime said that there was no guarantee that the Iranian regime would survive.

Other Iranian officials made similar remarks in the past few days indicating a growing fear of regime change among the regime’s elite.

“We must find the rules for human behavior and the causes of stability and collapse in order to live according to them. Otherwise there is no guarantee that we (regime) will stay and others will go,” Hassan Khomeini said speaking at a ceremony to mark the 10th anniversary of the death of an Iranian cleric in Jamaran in North Tehran.

• Graham more upbeat on Syria troop withdrawal after Trump meeting

A senior Republican U.S. senator said he emerged from a White House meeting with President Donald Trump on Sunday reassured that Trump is committed to defeating Islamic State even as he plans to withdraw American troops from Syria.

“We talked about Syria. He told me some things I didn’t know that made me feel a lot better about where we’re headed in Syria,” Graham, an influential voice on national security.

Graham said later on Twitter that Trump would make sure that any withdrawal from Syria “will be done in a fashion to ensure: 1)ISIS is permanently destroyed 2)Iran doesn’t fill in the back end. And 3)our Kurdish allies are protected.”

• US envoy on Iran’s hypocrisy: ‘Regime gets to be on Twitter, but not the people’

US ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell on Saturday tweeted his anger at the Iranian regime’s use of Twitter, while banning it for the Iranian people.

“Iranian Regime gets to be on @twitter but not the Iranian people…” Grenell tweeted in response to an account purporting to belong to Iranian parliament speaker Ali Larijani.

• Khamenei Quickly Appoints His Trusted Man To Head An Important Council

Sadeq Amoli Larijani – the chief of Iran’s hardline judiciary who has been blacklisted by Washington – was named on Sunday as the new head of the powerful Expediency Council, state television reported.

The council is intended to resolve disputes between parliament and a watchdog body, the Guardian Council.

• Iranian Students Continue Protests Over Campus Bus Crash

On Sunday, December 30th, students from Tehran’s Azad University of Science and Research protested for the second consecutive day in protest of the loss of their 10 classmates during a bus accident.

In the course of this move, the university president fled by his car from the university instead of answering the students.

• Iran: Farmers in Isfahan rally, demand river water shares

Farmers in the town of Varzaneh in Isfahan Province, central Iran, are continuing their rally on Sunday, saying they are even willing to risk their lives to have their demands fulfilled. These protests have continued for months now.

Farmers in this area of Iran, like many other towns and cities across the country, are protesting the policies implemented by Iranian regime authorities. Rivers throughout Iran are rerouted and river flows obstructed to provide for projects mainly pursued by the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and other initiatives that profit only those linked to Iranian regime authorities, or considered insiders.

• Family of jailed Iranian labor activist say he is in poor condition

The family of a member of a Haft Tappeh Sugarcane Factory Workers’ Trade Union said that he was in poor condition in prison and expressed concern over his overall health.

Ali Nejati’s family who visited him, said that he had become thin and pale and that he was being kept in a crowded part of Shush Prison in the southern province of Khuzestan despite suffering from a serious heart condition.

Iranian labor activist Ali Nejati was recently sentenced to “disrupting public order” and “spreading propaganda” against the Iranian government.

Ali Nejati was detained on November 29 while the sugarcane workers were still on strike in the southern town of Shush.

• Nine Evangelical Christians Arrested During Christmas Week In Iran

Nine evangelical Christians have been arrested in recent days in Alborz province, neighboring the capital Tehran, the state-run Tasnim, a news agency with ties to the IRGC Quds Force, reported on Sunday.

Tasnim had already reported the arrest of four Christians on Saturday and on Sunday it said five more were arrested on December 26, a day after Christmas. It is not clear when exactly the first four were detained.

The Iranian regime regularly persecutes people who convert from Islam to Christianity and most converts try to worship secretly in home-churches.